Broom to Boardroom Career Path Praised & Recommended for Public Sector Take up . The MSC Newswire service sector panel again this year highly commended the New Zealand service sector for the way in which it consistently presented a cheerful and helpful approach to customers. The retail sector was singled out for special praise. Panelists singled out the way in which the grocery and hardware multiples especially infused their staff work with a sense of promotion scope and therefore opportunity. The multiples were also praised for their staff selection procedures which at the outset and regardless of age or formal…

Isolation imposed time lag continues as New Zealand characteristic The delivery of the earthquake struck coastal township of Kaikoura with the second syllable pronounced as in “cow” has become the signal shibboleth or password designed to reveal the utterer, and the organisation that employs them, as being politically correct. Kai- COW – ra has now replaced as the dominant pc call sign the previous place-name pronunciation which was KIDDY –KIDDY for the far northern township of Kerikeri. Both these hallmark pronunciations had their genesis in New Zealand’s government broadcasting operation. This was in spite of the state broadcasting corporation’s late…

Political Class-Media Armageddons Recalled Three scaremongering and imminent disaster predicted without qualification by the political classes that would paralyse civilisation in the new millennium have now conspicuously failed to come to pass. The millennialist threats in terms of the disaster they were predicted to precipitate were:- The Y2K computer paralysis Food miles Peak oil The Y2K COMPUTER paralysis was predicted to hit civilisation with the advent of the current millennium, the second millennium. In the event global data processing continued as before. The pretext for the scare was that computer operating system clocks were said to be self-eliminating at the…

Media-encouraged hysteria feeds false hopes. The first priority of the National government’s new dream team is to confront a nightmare. A real one. It is the moral issue of the Pike River aftermath and which takes the form of reopening the mine in order to seek for the mortal remains of the 29 brave miners who perished there. It is a fevered issue which must now be cauterised in the national interest and in the interest of the bereaved. . The new prime minister Bill English is the authority figure to do it. He must now state quite definitely that…

Questions Float about IPO ticket-clip - The mooted litigation-funded class action against the Wynyard Group faces an immediate two-fold problem. This is exactly what entities are in the firing line of this proposed action, and how will any desired reparations be extracted from these entities? Are we looking here, for example, at Britain’s Skipton Building Society? This financial services organisation is usually cited as controlling the Jade computer services organisation from which the Wynyard Group originated. There are several problems here.One is that the Skipton Building Society–Jade organisation’s association with Wynyard Group is rather more tenuous than is…

Sudden disappearance of New Zealand civil engineering institution led to standards decline claims correspondent The rush to bury the reality and the memory of the old New Zealand Ministry of Works had a singular and tangible outcome. This was the standards vacuum. The subsequent leaky building problem and the modern buildings which collapsed due to earthquakes in Christchurch are the result of this. This state of affairs was referred to, but not at the length it deserved by your original correspondent who correctly described the New Zealand “way” in which entities once believed to be of value are suddenly…

US-made First Alert extinguisher had undisclosed additional safety catch trigger A US-made fire extinguisher on sale in New Zealand features an undisclosed second-tier safety trip which is in addition to the standard pull-pin release mechanism. The second tier safety device on the extinguisher is comprised of a barely visible plastic filament. This must be pressed simultaneously with the white trigger at the top. No indication is given on the instructions of the existence of this additional filament-press detonation mechanism. The three part operating instruction only states to Pull Pin/Aim/Press Lever. Absolutely no mention is made of the barely visible filament…

Oceania Free Trade will give Lowlands a conflict-free market zone which Canada deal will not The EU’s stop-go trade deal with Canada points up the obvious advantages that the Lowlands, notably Belgium, will derive from a similar such arrangement with New ZealandThe Walloons, the Belgium-region which vetoed the Canadian deal, has been scorned for its obstructionism. Yet in fact a single market with Canada poses immense problems to Belgium which was once the European powerhouse of the Industrial Revolution. Here are some of them:- Canada’s heavy engineering sector, notably in the form of Bombardier, will compete directly with EU’s heavy…

A London reader revisits the genesis of middle class fashionable discontent I have followed the MoW revisited discussion from afar and with great curiosity. I would like to add now my recollections. In my view the original reason for what can only be described as the diabolical aura that attached itself to the old Ministry of Works was the Wellington urban motorway (pictured) which necessarily tore a swath through the capital’s main student flatting area in Thorndon. This precipitated Wellington’s accommodation shortage which exists to this day. The resentment that this detonated was not immediately evident and the Ministry of…

Applied management training The Ministry of Works was a prime mover in further education and this especially applied to ensuring that its engineers were given practical management training. Throughout the 1960s, for example, its chief training officer G.P. Rabey with the Institute of Management conducted applied training sessions throughout the country. In your anonymous communique “Do you Want Another Ministry of Works?” Your correspondent defines the problem which was becoming discernible in the 1960s of the government being the major operator, in this case of public works, while at the same time being civil engineering sector regulator. As was pointed…

An ex-employee reader responds to the question “Do you want another Ministry of Works?” For a while in the 1960s I worked as a labourer at the Ministry of Works Benmore dam site. It has been fashionable now for an entire generation to deride the MoW, everything it stood for, and everything it did. Yet I believe that the MoW is now worthy of some impartial scrutiny and especially so in the way in which it routinely went about its business in what are now viewed as critical spheres of activity in the productive sector. Among them:- * …

Since 1990 Dairy Production almost Double But Waste Water Treatment Capacity Unchanged Agri process threat to rural drinking water deliberately ignored You claim that pastoral pollution is first, foremost and always New Zealand’s top environmental priority?Let us look at dairy production. Since 1990 dairy output has increased 85 percent. So during this time we can say that the output of waste has similarly almost doubled. Yet waste treatment capacity has hardly increased at all during this time. What is your advice?Fifty years ago urban New Zealand faced the same problem and in much the same percentage growth. The cities were…

France’s English-speaking colony The Franco-German investment in New Zealand is just as extensive in its way as the British presence was in its heyday prior to UK membership of the EU. This is the main reason why the New Zealand/EU (sans Britain) trade deal is regarded with such favour by the two pillars of the EU. The scope of the French presence in New Zealand is especially pervasive encompassing as it does so many industrial sectors. It is one reason why New Zealand premier John Key seen here on the reviewing stand with French cabinet members was accorded such a…

New Zealand’s beleaguered developer ready with major global tech breakthroughs Kim Dotcom might have faded in New Zealand, his adopted country that wants to evict him. But he is on fire in Europe with his Megaupload2 product which threatens to introduce a startling new tech innovation in the form of the marriage of file and money handling. His new Megaupload2 product devolves into BNK2TheFuture (banking in the future) and Bitcache which is under the co-development of Englishman Simon Dickson of Bitcoin, writes our European correspondent.New Zealand’s latest information technology product takes the global IT industry into an entirely new sphere…

A set back internationally for New Zealand Progressives António Guterres (picture), the former prime minister of Portugal, will lead the United Nations after a rare show of unity between the two most powerful security council members, the US and Russia. This appointment due to be announced at any moment dashes the single most ardent hope of New Zealand progressives who sincerely believed that former premier Helen Clarke would be appointed. Helen Clarke, a campaigner of Clintonesque proportions in her long campaign also sincerely believed that she had more than a fighting chance. Even in spite of The (Manchester)Guardian in an…

Island State is Running Out of Patience. Geopolitics penetrated Wellington last night when at the Republic of China’s national day celebrations there was let rip from the podium a scathing condemnation of Beijing’s veto of Taiwan’s right to participate in the International Civil Aviation Organisation conference. The veto was calculated to hit the island state’s sensitive spot. Beijing’s official reason was that the veto was the response to Taipei’s recent political developments, writes our diplomatic roundsman. In effect the ICAO veto snub was calculated to hit Taiwan in one of its newest and most important economic areas – tourism. In…

1. You predicted pre-BREXIT the end of the EU. But did you envisage at this time anything like the Deutsche Bank crisis? Yes, Deutsche Bank has been in crisis for many years. I did write about it late last year in November in the Australian Financial Review. I put my thoughts down this way:- “Bankers are overpaid, bonus payments are useless and there is an inflation of fancy job titles in banking “That was the essence of a speech recently delivered at Frankfurt’s Goethe University. “Had the speaker been…

Campaign will boost house prices –Depress Competitive Edge. Napier industrialist Ken Evans is cautioning Come-to-Live in Hawkes Bay promoters that they run the risk of creating the very problems that their target market of Auckland residents are fleeing to escape. This is a property prices spiral along with associated pressure on education and health services. Mr Evans warns that Napier especially is one of the nation’s leading repositories of engineering and technical skills and that this was sustained by affordable housing and the presence of high grade education along with health care. “Competition for housing will make it hard for…

From an act of thuggery and violence (one at the upper end of the scale) once again a no-consequence scenario has come out of the court system for the perpetrator. Just a slap on the hand with a wet flannel. Add to this a report in today's news that he gladly told one of his victims that he had won the case! Well the reality is 'you ain't won nothing' - in fact with the assistance of the judge this person has done the rugby fraternity in Wellington a lot of damage. One wonders if the judge…

Management School Techniques are camouflaged under exhibitionist Barbarity The common sense in merging New Zealand’s dual main national security agencies, Communications and the Security Intelligence Service has been more than proved during the intervening months. The reason is that the terror problem since then has been clearly demonstrated to be more unstructured than anyone, notably security specialists, had dared to believe. The burden of evidence now points to individuals being under the direction of a corporate style client-management process with the manager-controller issuing instructions via the messaging services, writes our European Correspondent. The client management process in which terror perpetrators…

MSC Newswire Hospitality & Tourism Walk-Through otherwise Encouraging. The MSC Newswire panel in its annual review of the hospitality and tourism related sector has again given high marks to practitioners for what is described as “efficient, and friendly service,” even under what is described as “difficult” conditions. Evaluators in this current review which focused on the South Island had only two reservations. One of them was the signposting at Christchurch International Airport where they discovered that there were no signs for the benefit of international arrivals directing them to domestic flights or indeed other connecting flights. Air New Zealand was…

“Love my Vote – Love My Dogs” Dogs are the forbidden issue in the pending New Zealand local government elections. None of the candidates want to introduce, let alone discuss, the increasingly raw topic of the nation’s dogs and their owners. There are two reasons behind the electoral blind eye to an increasing health problem which takes two forms. These are the growing number of attacks by dogs on humans, especially children, in addition to the perennial fouling problem. Local government candidates avoid the issue in the knowledge that dog owners are single-issue electors in that any measure against their…

First industrial-scale heist since 1855. The clean getaway of the Ashburton rustlers and their 500 –cow heist underlines the imminence of New Zealand of stock theft as a continuing threat. The theft is the first such large-scale one in more than a generation. In New Zealand a 500 plus herd is considered a large one and this is the first incident in which such a large number of farm stock have been officially reported as missing. The cows, in calf, appear not have been insured thus indicating a straight out rustling operation. The non-insurance of the animals points to the…

United States is looking at a Restoration “He was the heart, she was the head” confided a former Reagan-era cabinet member in a private conversation about the Clinton presidency. Yet otherwise Americans to any foreigner insist that Hillary Clinton will be new to the job. That she is running in fact as a first timer instead of running for re-election,. Americans refuse to accept they are facing a Restoration. The topic is taboo in the United States media all the way from the ultra-liberal East and West coast newspapers and television networks through to their right-leaning counterparts in the hinterland.…

More on the weasel word Dear Sir, The term transparent is as your correspondent correctly observed is dangerous in that it conveys the impression of underpinning specialist knowledge. It is as if a person whose medical knowledge was confined to what they had gleaned from popular magazines and television shows went around cocktail parties telling people that they were in the best of health. In fact even professional auditors sign off their reports with the qualification that their audit report is based only on the data supplied. Your correspondent correctly blames the word transparent on the false confidence prior to…

Word is transparent warning to withdraw your money from anyone uttering it Dear SirFrom your catalogue of old words/new meanings you (deliberately?) omitted the most misleading and indeed most dangerous in this category. I refer to the word transparent, usually rendered as “transparency” which has been plucked from the three dimensional world and applied to accountancy.In its application in accountancy it is used by people who wish to give the impression that that they are well versed in this most demanding of professions. Such people talk about the need for transparency or for this or that to be in a…

The MSC Newswire panel has identified the following words routinely uttered by politicians, officials, and broadcasters which have in recent years taken on new meanings. Audits Something fishy/official investigation. Not necessarily into accounts Birthing Maternity - nothing to do with ships Choices Decisions/options/ alternatives Early childhood Kindergarten Family Staff/employees/ “team” Interventions Social welfare involvement Issues Problems Monitor A problem has/will occur and officials wonder what to do Parenting This gerund replaces the old “bringing up” of children (“raising” in the US) Procedure Surgical operation Resilient Sustainable Robust Designed to hold water in law court Security Supply of something, as in…

Widely used technology routinely ignored in New Zealand claims process engineer. European technology that converts milk and meat processing plant effluent into self- contained waste consuming and energy generating plants is now available in New Zealand.Napier industrialist Ken Evans said the technology allowed milk and meat processing plants to become their own standalone waste treatment units with the added advantage of these plants using the waste so consumed as their own source of energy. As an example he cited large scale milking centres in Europe that were self sufficient in power simply because all the waste they generated was converted…

Togs reveal limits of diversity and multiculturalism A swimwear outfit designed in Australia is pulling apart the ruling coalition of the world’s sixth largest economy and in doing so is granulating the two central pillars of modern social democracy—diversity and multiculturalism.The beach togs are unraveling the threads of these backdrop tapestries of contemporary liberal belief not because they reveal too much. But too little.The burkini has become the symbol of the limits of diversity and multiculturalism. Throughout France, local municipalities, notably in the Nice area, continue to defy a high court ruling to the effect that their wearers are entitled…

European experience points to need for suppliers to add value, diversify The blockade by angry French dairy farmers of the Lactalis HQ at Laval carries a strong message for their New Zealand counterparts similarly dismayed by their returns, though not possessed of the Latin temperament required to man the barricades. The lesson centres on the wisdom of signing up for a fixed volume and price contract which is the issue underpinning the Lactalis ructions, writes our European Correspondent. The problem is that the dairy farmer cannot recover fixed costs by supplying milk at any price. In contrast a cooperative, Fonterra…

Our European Correspondent (see “ Reporter at Brentry & Brexit says Ted Heath was the Genuine Article”) touched upon a statesman he considered genuine. We asked him to look through the tunnel of time, and distance, and identify some authentic New Zealand counterparts. John A Lee: The “A” was always obligatory. He was the last active living member of the original Labour Party to survive into recent times, and to still remain a force in them. He lost a forearm in the First World War and is widely credited with being the politician behind implementing…

In France the Left means the Left - Even if his boss has failed to see the danger, France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls has slipped the leash attack-dog style to go for the throat of Nicolas Sarkozy, the most serious contender to replace France’s president Francois Hollande at next year’s election. Nicolas Sarkozy was deposed as France’s president by Francois Hollande. Mr Sarkozy is not a good loser. He has seen his opportunity, writes our European Correspondent. It is in the form of Mr Hollande’s seeming hesitation in coping with the new religious threat viewed by many French as the…

Madame du Barry intervened New Zealand’s pending free trade agreement with the EU presents the country with an opportunity to supply France’s Pacific possessions. France has always insisted in supplying these foreign territories direct from France. The result has been that New Zealand exporters have enjoyed a fraction of the true value from this potential market. In 2014 for example New Zealand exporters garnered $180 million from a market potentially worth much more. Total imports from these possessions that same year of $4 million, mainly scrap and decoratives, give an indication of a most favourable balance to be built upon.…

In which the president of the National Press Club seeks to explain the mystery of why he was the recipient, among many others, of an email soliciting donations from the British publishing organisation which owns The Guardian and which has cash reserves of around $1 billion. At first glance you believed that the begging letter from The Guardian was counterfeit? It seemed to be a too perfect pastiche of The Guardian style. Also it seemed improbable to imagine that a newspaper that called it so utterly wrong for Brexit would then brazenly send out a letter soliciting donations so…

Not wanted on EU voyage. Europe’ most virulent outbreak of tribalism is nowadays evident in Scotland’s determination to quit the United Kingdom and team up with the EU. The problem is that the EU has no intention of participating in this particular version of the Highland Fling. Scotland’s main economic dowry of whisky is now almost entirely owned outside Scotland. It’s two banks, the Bank of Scotland and the Royal Bank of Scotland are bankrupt and nationalised and controlled from London, writes our European correspondent. Its oil and oil services industry is badly depleted. That leaves salmon. Here Scotland indeed…

Doctrines now having opposite effect of the intended one. France the country that invented diversity and multiculturalism is having to abandon them just because they constrain diversity and multiculturalism by forcing the nation into gender segregation. The problem was thrust into embarrassing pubic prominence a year ago when police were required to guard an Arab potentate’s private beach on France’s Mediterranean coast, writes our European Correspondent. Some of the police rostered onto the task were women. Such guardianship ran counter to the proclaimed religious beliefs of those using the private beach. The female police were rostered off. The religious embarrassment…

Industrialist sees tie-up as turning point in public asset policy nationwide The Port of Auckland can no longer be expanded because of the growing opposition from a coalition of leisure and environmental groups commented Napier industrialist Ken Evans who also drew attention to the increasing pressure on the Auckland port to release land for high density housing. Mr Evans (pictured) of Napier Engineering was commenting on the alliance between the ports of Auckland and Napier. The deal between the two port authorities had the strength he said of recognising Napier’s position as the obvious alternative port in the North Island.…

Orderly and methodical marketing was his trademark The death at 65 after a short illness of vineyard proprietor Richard Riddiford will recall for many his remarkable organisational feat in instituting the Wellington region’s main food and wine exposition, Toast Martinborough. This required a two phase management. The first in bonding together the Martinborough district’s numerous and by definition, individualistic vineyards. The second in the precision marketing so that the event was perceived as a gastronomic one. He was successful in both these steps which he capped by ensuring that the annual event was always sold as if tickets were in…

Bulk Carrier’s arrival emphasises port’s role as nation’s fertiliser handling hub. The arrival at Napier in August of the bulk carrier Mollie Manx emphasises the port’s role as New Zealand’s fertiliser hub. The 60,000 tonne vessel was built six years ago and calls into Napier before resuming its outward voyage to Laayoune the capital of Western Sahara. The vessel is registered in the Isle of Man and is owned by LT Ugland Shipping which specialises in owning large-capacity bulk carriers. It was built at the Tsuneishi Phillipine Shipyard. Vessels in the Ugland fleet are all named after family members or…

Hawkes Bay & Wairarapa Wines get a special Commendation. Singapore tastemaker Robin Greatbatch proprietor of the Blue Bali restaurant on the Botanic Gardens has declared himself an ardent promoter of New Zealand wines, especially those from Hawkes Bay and the Wairarapa Valley. “These wines have the dual advantage of being perceived as premium, yet at the same time are affordable,” enthused Mr Greatbatch. He is widely credited with introducing to the island city state Indonesian cuisine and presentation. His Blue Bali series of restaurants and bars is definingly positioned in a large colonial era administration building situated at No 1…

Problem hiding in plain sight We asked MSC Newswire's European correspondent for an update on the emergency in France........ You have evaluated at close hand the terrorism in France. Are there any lessons that can be learned by New Zealand?We can see clearly an ingrained mind-set in both countries centred on the it-can’t happen here syndrome. The difference being that in France, it has happened there. We can see also a facilitating over-tolerance in both countries and at many levels of the community in both countries in regard to accepting and even condoning anti-social behaviourBe more specific here.I will. In…

Process consolidation at key Westland meat plant In 2015 ANZCO implemented a policy to centralise process rendering on its Canterbury plant at Ashburton. This was part of ANZCO’s strategy of applying to the best advantage the geographical spread of its New Zealand-wide processing sites in order to achieve freshness of products. The consolidation meant that the ANZCO plant at Kokiri, near Greymouth, now concentrated on meat cuts and associated chilling and blast freezing along with hide preservation and products in thepharmaceutical sphere. It also meant that the Kokiri plant was now required to transport to the centralised Canterbury plant all…

John Key is obvious candidate The continuing shadow of the Tapie scandal overhanging Christine Lagarde has reappeared and threatens to create at the head of the International Monetary Fund a vacancy that could by filled by New Zealand Premier John Key. South Seas prime ministers past and present are currently in vogue to fill exactly this kind of top-line international forum role, a trend that was begun by former New Zealand premier Mike Moore taking the helm of the World Trade Organisation. Another former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark is in full campaign for the top slot at the…

Wool pulled over eyes of English-speaking realm MSC Newswire’s European correspondent explains the causes and effects of the emergency in France: - Terrorism presents the picture of a permanent part of French life?Until Nice and the Thomas-a-Becket style assassination of the catholic priest you could almost say that it was becoming an accepted part of French life. Explain?It is not yet understood in the English-speaking world that the very structure of France led inevitably to the kind of chaos we see today. Fill in the gaps?The constant pull from France’s extreme left, the gauche de la gauche, as it is…

But old Siegmund knew all about private banking. Former US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner visited Singapore last week in his new role as president of global private equity fund Warburg Pincus and his presence hardly raised a ripple of interest. No wonder, writes MSC Newswire's Peter Isaac. Singapore has taken over from Switzerland as the home of private banking with the added impetus of becoming the centre of Chinese private banking too. Driven out of Switzerland by a Franco-US led purge on anonymous accounts, the private banking sector and its customers have settled in the orderly city state and have…

New Zealand’s Southern Spars has provided masts for a range of different teams in every America’s Cup for the past 25 years, including the victorious Black Magic campaign in 1995. The boat, a 50ft foiling catamaran, will be launched early next year ahead of the Louis Vuitton Challenger Series and America’s Cup to be held in Bermuda from the beginning of May 2017. Emirates Team New Zealand said it will be its most technically-advanced yacht ever. Last month, Emirates Team New Zealand launched its first custom-designed development boat, which Southern Spars is also producing the wing-sails for. Emirates Team New…

When a New Zealand businessman needed to solve a unique transportation problem, he sought out a Bend (OR)company for help. Tiger Tugs, a subsidiary of Cutting Edge Design Inc. in southeast Bend, recently finished work on a modified version of its standard remote-control helicopter tug. While standard Tiger Tugs can only move a helicopter forward and backward into a hangar, the new version, the Typhoon, can move in any direction. Steve Hill, founder of Tiger Tugs, said this will allow the New Zealand businessman to land a helicopter on his luxury yacht, and turn it sideways to fit it into…

ContainerCo (NZL) Limited (ContainerCo), the container depot operator, today announced that it will develop a major new container services facility in Hawke’s Bay as reported earlier in the year on MSCNewsWire The new purpose built facility will be developed on a five hectare site in Mersey Street, within the Napier City Council’s industrial zone. Over time, it is expected that $5-10m will be invested in the site development. ContainerCo’s managing director Ken Harris said that the investment both reflects and supports the growth of exports and imports in Hawke’s Bay as well as the continued success of Napier Port in…

Pro Golfer Bubba Watson, Oakley and Martin Aircraft have teamed up to create the Golf Cart Jetpack. The humble golf cart is not very slick, but it gets the job done. So is there a better way to get from tee to green? In 2013, pro golfer Bubba Watson, along with Oakley and Neoteric Hovercraft, posed this question with a Golf Cart Hovercraft. Now, with the help of Martin Aircraft, the team has taken to the skies with the Golf Cart Jetpack. Based on Martin's current pre-production prototypes, the Golf Cart Jetpack can fly as high as 3,000 feet (914…

Increasingly awkward national role as US foreign policy cheerleader US Vice President Joe Biden’s “touchdown” this week in New Zealand presents New Zealand premier John Key with the problem of having to enthuse over several issues that he knows are actually or potentially damaging to the economy, or are being viewed as unlikely to happen. They are:- China’s expansion into the South China Sea. This falls on top of the steel dumping issue. Any overt condemnation of China’s territorial incursions into the South China Sea has the possibility of very severely damaging New Zealand’s dairy exports. China’s economy is a…

Her Majesty always committed to Commonwealth but Doctrinal UK commentators bamboozle naïve NZ counterparts Three powerful figures are now ranged behind a restoration of the Commonwealth trade and emigration bloc centred on Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.They are Her Majesty the Queen, foreign secretary Boris Johnson, and international trade secretary Dr Liam Fox. Her Majesty is known to favour a return of the active and operational Commonwealth era. The Queen is the head of the Commonwealth and has remained its consistently most ardent supporter. Foolishly, what is left of the print media here, and which is in thrall to elements…

Friendship with Sir David Attenborough seen as big plus for car-buff presenter Paul Henry’s mysterious mid-winter holiday is increasingly being ascribed to the television showman’s candidacy for the BBC’s most valuable property which is the motor series Top Gear. Mr Henry (pictured above) is known to have been considered for the anchor role when it originally became vacant when defining presenter Jeremy Clarkson made his departure. Since then the show has floundered, notably during the term as presenter of a well-known British disc jockey and is now often referred to as Top Flop. The BBC has too much invested in…

Hawkes Bay institutions anticipate port ship mechanical services demand Napier, MSCNewsWire, Thursday 14 July 2016 - Two historic pillars of the Hawkes Bay economy are evaluating a joint approach in developing Napier as a focus for ship repair in the South Seas. They are the Port of Napier itself and Napier Engineering and Contracting whose 150 year history has been closely linked to the progress of the port. Napier Engineering is the east coast’s major heavy engineer and in association with the port undertakes vessel repairs while the ships are wharfside. The company specialises in rapid deployment repairs begun and…

Successive governments by trying to appease fashionable activists end up by pleasing nobody Napier, MSCNewsWire, Wednesday 13 July 2016 - In quite recent times New Zealand governments in seeking to placate powerfully placed, but non-productive, lobby sectors have systematically disrupted and damaged the entire house building sector, one of the nation’s core industries. Below are listed the main appeasement policies with, in bold type, the lobby and activist category that caused them to happen, and the result of each of these as they made their impact on house building. The lesson is how a bedrock national industry has become so…

A view from afar - While a project is underway to make a bike path that would stretch along the East Coast of the U.S., in Auckland, New Zealand, some clever designers have covered a former highway offramp with a shocking pink nonslip resin to create a bike path that has just been shortlisted for this year’s World Architecture Awards. Designed by Monk Mackenzie architects and landscape architecture firm LandLab, the Nelson Street Cycleway (known as “the Light Path”) opened in December and has already been christened by more than 100,000 cyclists.The 0.37-mile offramp turned bike path cuts through the…

Taranaki tycoon urges countrymen to explore new business frontier Napier, MSCNewsWire, Friday 13 May 2016 - The West’s only oligarch Stephen Jennings under the sponsorship of the New Zealand Initiative will address an Auckland forum in July this year. The Taranaki-born and Massey University educated Jennings is considered to be one of the very few genuine inhabitants of the pantheon of the South Seas nation’s super rich. He is certainly the West’s only authentic Russian oligarch having arrived there with Credit Suisse, and then set up on his own account.. His Renaissance operation took a roller coaster ride in the…

But on the numbers side rather than the people one Napier, MSCNewsWire, 4 May 2016 - Even Mark Weldon’s most avid admirer would not describe him as a people person. He is a performance and results person. It was always rather a mystery why he accepted the top operational job at Mediaworks a song-and-dance entertainment outfit covered by a thin news legitimacy. Mr Weldon is an over achiever and was simply over-qualified for the job. His numbers-related actions from the start raised the hackles of what he might describe as the “customer-facing” staff, the station personalities. One of the first…

Sometime after the tearing down of the Berlin Wall and the morphing of the USSR into Russia I found myself celebrating May Day at the Russian Embassy. Some traditions never change, writes foreign correspondent Peter Isaac.